In recent years, it is known a technology of controlling, for example, a load provided in a consumer or a dispersed power source provided in a consumer by a power management apparatus (for example, HEMS: Home Energy Management System) provided in each consumer.
Examples of the dispersed power source may include a fuel cell unit including a fuel cell such as an SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell). Examples of the dispersed power source may include a power generation equipment that utilizes clean energy such as sunlight, wind power, or geothermy.
In this case, generally, the power output from the fuel cell unit is controlled to follow power consumption of a load provided in a consumer (for example, Patent Literature 1).
Meanwhile, when a state in which power consumption of a load is low is continued, the temperature of a fuel cell during an operation is decreased. In the state where the temperature of the fuel cell during an operation is decreased, load followability of the fuel cell worsens, thus power supplied from the fuel cell can no longer follow the power consumption of the load.